


four hundred and seven hours

by princesskay



Series: in your eyes [3]
Category: Mindhunter (TV 2017)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Edging, Established Relationship, M/M, Masturbation, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Praise Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:07:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24223270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princesskay/pseuds/princesskay
Summary: Bill challenges Holden to two weeks of abstinence - with conditions.
Relationships: Holden Ford/Bill Tench
Series: in your eyes [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1748365
Comments: 18
Kudos: 108





	1. Week One

Holden doesn’t bother turning the lights on in his living room when he creeps into the apartment. Pewter moonlight stripes past the vertical blinds, offering just enough illumination for him to see as he drops his luggage near the couch, and shuffles down the hall into his bedroom. 

Despite the late hour - nearly ten o’clock - he doesn’t feel tired, but rather exhilarated. He’s just come from the airport and the long flight from Idaho where yesterday he closed the case of a missing child. One little girl had already died, and the local police hadn’t waited for it to become a serial before calling up the BSU. Holden’s quick assessment of the suspect list and the men in the girls’ lives provided quick closure and the second victim being returned alive to her family - an extreme rarity in their work. 

Now that he’s certain the unsub is locked away from the public and hurting anyone else, it feels like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders. It’s always like this when he comes home after a successful trip. The oppressive cloud of darkness melts away, leaving his own bare, shuddering humanity, all of his quieted needs erupting to the surface now that they’re morally acceptable. He did the right thing, and now he’s free to feel and want whatever he likes. 

Tonight, he goes straight to the telephone and dials.

While the phone rings, Holden kicks off his shoes and shrugs out of his jacket. As he eases down to the edge of the mattress, the line picks up. 

“Hello?” 

“Hey, it’s me.” 

“Hey, you’re back.” Bill says, his voice taking on a warm note of affection. “How was the flight?”

“Long. Boring. I’m so glad to be home.”

“Me, too.”

Holden strips off his tie, and sinks back against the duvet. The lamplight casts golden shadows across the ceiling, bathing familiar surroundings in a comforting glow. He can feel himself sinking into the normalcy of his environment. 

“I thought of you the whole plane ride home.” He murmurs, reaching down to unbutton his shirt. 

“Did you now?”

“Yes. About how much I missed you.”

Bill’s inhale scrapes quietly across the static of the phone line. “I missed you, too.”

Holden bites his lower lip as he gets his button-down all the way open and tugs the hem of his t-shirt free of his trousers. The slight graze of his fingertips across his belly sparks fresh need, his desire impatiently rearing its head. 

“I know it’s late …” He whispers, letting his voice trail off suggestively.

Bill chuckles, quietly. “Fuck. You’re already touching yourself, aren’t you?”

“Not yet. But close.”

“You better slow down, then. It’s a fifteen minute drive for me to get there.”

Holden’s breath hitches. “Really?”

“Stay where you are.”

Before Holden can muster an ecstatic or thankful response, the call drops. His mouth stretches in a smile as he imagines Bill grabbing his keys and running out the door. 

He sits up to put the receiver back in the cradle and strip the rest of the way out of his button-down. Tossing the shirt haphazardly on the floor, he sprawls back against the pillows with a pleased sigh. His hand drifts down between his legs, nudging up against his groin where need is beginning to pulse. 

Closing his eyes, he tries to steady his breathing and pace himself. He enjoys the gradual build-up, his erection growing slowly yet steadily to the inadequate groping of his hand through layers of fabric. As his cock begins to push achingly against the restraint, he slips his eyelids open to check the clock. 

A scarce five minutes have passed. He yanks his hand away, biting back a frustrated groan. He hasn’t had an orgasm in a week, and his body is lurching with pent-up need. The slightest erotic thought on the plane had nearly given him an instant hard-on that he’d pushed down repeatedly, but now that he’s home, he’s having trouble exacting the same mental fortitude. Still, he doesn’t want to come before Bill gets here; he just wants to be aroused enough to create the perfect tableau when he walks through the door. 

Keeping an eye on the clock and smothering the clawing impatience in his chest, Holden slowly unbuckles his belt and slides the zipper down. A strained whine pushes against the back of his throat as he lifts his hips to push the trousers down his thighs. He kicks the fabric away, leaving his cock bolting up against his underwear, drawing white cotton taut over the swollen head. Glancing down at the faint outline of his cockhead and shaft through the underwear, he feels the need coil even tighter. He’s close to bursting, and Bill hasn’t even arrived yet.

Tentatively, he grasps himself through his briefs and moans aloud. White hot need clutches him low in his belly, rippling with deep pulses that make his head swim with delirious arousal. 

He doesn’t realize he’s biting so hard at his lower lip until the skin begins to ache. His eyes slowly come open to see his heels digging into the mattress, his hips rocking up against the trembling, barely controlled stroke of his hand. His cock juts against the fabric of his underwear, threatening to tear past the thin barrier. 

Unable to stop himself, he strips out of his underwear, and reaches over to grab the Vaseline out of the nightstand. Sinking back against the sheets and curling his knees to his chest, he twists the lid off with trembling hands. Quickly, he dips his fingers into the ointment, and thrusts the slick hand between his raised legs to rub up against his hole. The touch spurs active, burning need from head to toe, drawing a whimper from his throat.

Grasping his cock in his left hand, he uses the right pair of fingers to penetrate himself abruptly. The brute force of it makes him gasp, his chest seizing with panicked need. His hazy eyes swing to the clock. 

_ God, Bill, hurry up.  _

His fingers thrust feverishly into himself, working his hole open while his left hand staggers through indelicate pulls on his cock. He tilts his head back, groaning aloud, fighting back the rising tide of orgasm even as his touch pushes it closer. 

His frantic straining comes to a dead halt when he hears the front door of his apartment open and shut again. His chest flutters, joy and need and desperation colliding beneath his breastbone. 

Drawing his knees tighter against his chest, he displays himself into a picture of obscene indulgence with his fingers lodged in his asshole and his hand wrapped around his hard, leaking dick. His face is burning with familiar shame and need, a combination he’s learned to derive a great amount of satisfaction from, but he still has that instinctive urge to cover up the blatant excess of his desires. Only when Bill lays eyes on him does the withering feeling in his chest completely die. 

Holden slowly thrusts his fingers into himself as he listens to Bill’s footfalls moving away from the front door and deeper into the apartment. The floorboard he knows well just beyond his bedroom door creaks beneath the weight, and his breathing nearly stops entirely. 

Bill’s shadow falls across the carpet just before he comes into view. It looks like he dressed hastily. His button-down is partially undone, and he’s wearing casual loafers with his black trousers. His face is taut with flushed need as he stands in the doorway, looking over the scene Holden had created. 

Holden bites his lower lip, his face blushing hotly, as he lifts his eyes to meet Bill’s gaze. Even from across the room, he can feel the humming power of that look, the blue, electric current of his eyes playing across Holden’s bare, exposed arousal like fire. 

They don’t say anything. 

Bill moves across the room, yanking open the buttons of his shirt. He throws it to the ground, and tugs at the fastening of his trousers as he nudges his shoes off. 

Holden thrusts his fingers into his hole all the while, keeping a half-lidded gaze on Bill’s entranced expression of lust. The buzzing silence fills with the wet squelch of two fingers plunging into his lax hole, the sound of it seeming to drive Bill mad. 

His hands are shaking as he kicks his bunched trousers from his ankles and strips his boxers down from his hips. His cock springs free, standing fully erect and pulsing against his belly, drawing Holden’s gaze from Bill’s face down to his groin. 

Bill crawls onto the bed, and swipes the Vaseline. 

“I thought I told you to slow down.” He says, his voice a raspy admonishment. 

“Sorry. I couldn’t help it.” 

“Oh, you could have. You just didn’t want to.” Bill observes, dipping his fingers into the ointment. 

Holden bites back a coy smirk, hardly contrite.

“Stop that.” Bill says, his gaze flicking to Holden’s fingers grinding into his hole. “Put your hands above your head.”

Holden whimpers softly as he extracts his fingers. His body pulses with a dull ache, the persistent need to be worked open, filled, fucked. He raises his arms above his head, lacing damp fingers together against the tremble working through him. 

Bill quickly lathers his cock in Vaseline, and shifts closer to guide it up against Holden’s limp opening. The first graze of contact makes them both hiss with need. Holden urges his hips up, eagerly offering himself, impatient for that sensation of Bill’s cock going in. 

Bill grasps the undersides of his thighs, pinning him down. 

“You’ve got yourself all worked up.” He murmurs, rocking his hips forward to slide his shaft along Holden’s slick cleft. 

“Mm … Mhmm.” Holden moans the affirmative, unable to provide a more articulate answer. 

Bill shakes his head, his teeth sliding against his lower lip. 

“Jesus. I was planning on fucking you nice and slow and deep when you got home.”

Holden’s brow furrows with a concentrated frown of desperation. He shakes his head, breathing out a shaky, frustrated exhale through his nostrils. 

“No?” Bill murmurs, reaching down to push his cockhead directly against Holden’s opening. “You don’t like that idea?”

“No, please …” Holden groans, urging up against the slight pressure. “Just do it. I can’t wait. I can’t-”

Bill chuckles softly as he leans in, causing the tip of his cock to slide into the slick, taut embrace of Holden’s body. 

“Oh, God …” Holden whispers, his mouth slipping open in pleasured awe. “Yes … yes-”

The pressure mounts slowly as Bill maintains a controlled pace, offering just enough motion to keep his cock tunneling in deeper while also forcing Holden to wait for that feeling of being filled to bursting. 

Holden wiggles underneath the gradual descent, groaning out his impatience, but the response only seems to galvanize Bill’s cool demeanor. His grip on Holden’s thighs tightens, pushing them open across Holden’s chest while also effectively trapping him in place. 

“Oh, ohh!” Holden cries, his hands clutching at the bedsheets as the steep angle leaves him breathless, overloaded with sensation, and aching with need. 

The slow penetration finally comes to an end with the muted slap of Bill’s hips against his backside, the hard, knotted tip of his cock buried deep inside. He goes still, groaning softly in the back of his throat when their bodies fuse, enjoying the motionless connection of his cock submerged to the hilt inside Holden’s quaking, tight hole. 

“Oh, fuck-” Holden chokes out, his eyelids cracking open to glimpse Bill poised above him, deliberately grinding his hips against his backside. “God, Bill …”

“This what you wanted, hm?” Bill grunts, his eyes half-shut as he regards Holden’s position below him. His mouth ripples with a flinch of need that he quickly swallows down. 

Holden nods, desperately. “Yes. Oh, yes, please-”

The babbling affirmation cuts off abruptly when the pressure releases. Bill pulls back, almost entirely to the tip, leaving Holden barely a second to breathe before he plunges back inside again. He gives a choked cry, his body thrilling with overwhelming pleasure at the bone-deep impact of Bill’s cock bottoming out inside him. 

“Oh, Jesus Christ.” Holden cries, clinging to the bed sheets as if the fragile fabric could brace him against what’s coming. “Yes, yes!”

Given over to the same desperation in Holden’s voice, Bill begins to the thrust against him. The bed springs squeal in protest as he launches into a swift, driving pace that has the frame rocking beneath their eager momentum. 

Holden’s mouth drops open in shock as Bill’s body slaps against his own with every fierce, deep thrust. His eyes slam shut, unable to focus on the visual of Bill laboring above him with the massive surge of sensation ricocheting through every inch of his body. The sudden penetration after days of going untouched is shocking and forceful, and it feels like he’s coming apart, his body taken, wrenched open, entirely inhabited. His pleasure, already pushed close to the edge, rises within him like a tidal wave. He barely recalls telling himself to do it before he grabs at his cock, urging the swelling, tingling orgasm towards the forefront. 

“Oh, fuck.” Bill grunts from above, leaning closer to plant a sloppy kiss on Holden’s mouth. His breath spills hot and humid across Holden’s gasping lips and cheeks, drawing Holden’s eyes open to glimpse his wrecked expression of need. “Fuck, you’re gorgeous.” 

Holden whimpers something indistinguishable, lost between the pleasure of hearing Bill praise him and the crushing tide of orgasm coming at him. His eyes squeeze shut again, glimpsing the wave rising higher and higher, feeling his groin clamping taut, his body squeezing down on Bill’s hammering cock. 

With a few more desperate pulls of his hand, he comes hard and fast. The spasms surge through him, swift and deliberate, triggering an abundant gush of release across his fist and belly. A week’s worth of repressed need breaks free, spreading through his belly and chest in rippling shocks of blinding satisfaction. 

He’s limp and panting when it comes to an end, but Bill is still above him, thrusting, panting, chasing his own orgasm. Holden’s eyelids slip open to watch in abject bliss as Bill toils over him, his cheeks flushed and his temples damp with perspiration that trickles down the hollow of his throat and along his breastbone. 

Pushing up against the pillows, Holden wraps his arms around Bill’s body and buries kisses in his chest. 

Bill grunts, the steady, hammering pace of his thrusts faltering as Holden smears wet kisses down his chest and against his nipple. Sinking his fingers into Holden’s hair, Bill holds him closer as he resumes thrusting, finding his rhythm again with Holden’s mouth latched onto him. 

Holden moans into the flesh, and draws back with his teeth bared. 

“Oh, fuck.” Bill groans, pulling onto Holden’s hair. 

Holden’s head tilts back beneath the grasp, and he opens his mouth eagerly when Bill’s lips come down all harsh and biting. It’s barely a kiss, more of a mutual, hungry nipping of teeth and sloppy jabs of tongues combining with gasping breaths and moans that grows more and more frantic while the determined pace of Bill’s hips devolves into fevered thrusts of approaching orgasm. 

“Fuck, fuck-” Bill pants, leaning harder into Holden’s body. 

Holden sinks back against the pillows, trapped beneath the weight of Bill’s body nearly crushing him in half. He can hardly breathe, but he enjoys the dizzying tide of sensation crashing over his highly sensitized body, making raw, making him weak. 

When Bill begins to come, Holden opens his eyes to watch the clench and twist of his face, that helpless, overwhelmed expression that only comes in the midst of satisfying, powerful orgasm. 

Bill shudders against him for several long moments until the flame of pleasure dwindles into lingering smoke. He pulls out slowly with a muted grunt, and sinks down between Holden’s limp thighs.

Holden’s ears buzz with overwhelmed equilibrium as his body deflates against the sheets, drained and floating with bliss. Bill’s head nestles against his chest, ear pressed to his thundering heartbeat. One hand traces the jutting swell of Holden’s ribcage, the sensation layering over the rest like electricity. 

“That was exactly what I wanted.” Holden whispers, his voice quietly wrecked in the silence. 

Bill lifts his head, his mouth tilted in a faint smile. 

“You’re insatiable.”

“Mm. It might be a real problem of mine.”

Bill’s smirk broadens as he props his chin on his knuckles and intently traces Holden’s expression of sheepish honesty. 

“You know you’re right.” He says, “I drove over here in record time and you were still about to make yourself come without me.”

Holden bites his lower lip. “Well, I hadn’t come in a week, and I-”

“A week.” Bill interrupts softly.

“Yes. That’s a long time for me to-”

Bill snorts, his amusement blatant and unrepentant. 

“What? Why are you laughing?”

“Christ, you have no idea what it’s like.” Bill says, shaking his head. 

“What what’s like?”

“To be in a relationship where sex isn’t a priority - where once a week is generous.”

Holden purses his lips. “Oh. I guess I do have it pretty good.”

“Yeah, you do. You’re this frantic after a week? I’d love to see what two weeks would do to you.”

Holden flushes hotly as Bill’s tone takes on a somber, intrigued note, levity slipping below the surface. He swallows hard. 

“You’re serious?”

“Yeah.” Bill says, running his palm up Holden’s hitched ribs and gently caressing the soft bud of his nipple. “You think you can handle it?”

“I don’t know, I- I’ve never …”

“Tried practicing some self control?” Bill asks, his eyebrow arching. 

“Well. No.” Holden whispers, sinking lower against the sheets. 

“I think it would do you some good. I indulge you way too often.”

“You do? I thought you indulged me the perfect amount.”

“No, I think I’m a little too generous when it comes to you and me walking into the middle of an almost completely achieved orgasm.”

“It wasn’t almost completely-”

Holden stops and purses his mouth shut when Bill shoots him a stern gaze. His face is still hot, ashamed with his own impatience and lack of discipline, but more humiliated by the thought of abstaining for twice as long as he had this time. 

Two weeks. He’d done it before, but never while he was having sex with Bill. And sex with Bill is incredibly mind-blowing, so far above anything else that he’s ever experienced that the thought of going without it for two weeks is almost more than he can bear. Does that make him spoiled and over-indulged? Maybe so. 

Bill leans forward to kiss Holden’s jutting lower lip. 

“Are you pouting?” He asks, softly.

“No.”

“You don’t have to do it.”

“No, I want to.” Holden says, stubbornly. 

“You sure?”

“Yes. Because you think I can’t, and I’m going to prove to you that I can.”

Bill chuckles. “Well, fine.”

“Yeah, it is fine. I can handle it.”

Bill extricates himself from Holden’s embrace, and sits back on his heels to survey Holden’s sprawled, well-fucked array of limbs on the bed beneath him. 

“Okay, then.” He says, spreading his hands. “After tonight, no more. The next time you come, it’s going to be a long time from now, and you’re going to be desperate as hell.”

Holden swallows hard, feeling the heated blush creeping above his eyes and down his neck. When Bill lays it out like that, he almost wants to take back his own foolish obstinance. Instead, he says, “I can’t wait.” 

~

For the first three days, Holden has himself stubbornly convinced that abstaining from sex for two weeks is not going to be a problem. He can focus on work, and put it out of his mind; and it is fairly easy to do when they’re at the office, a mountain of paperwork in front of him acting as the perfect antithesis of arousal. It isn’t until the weekend hits that his previously occupied thoughts are left to roam wildly across familiar, heated terrain, the dark recesses of his desires, his own copious fantasies. 

On Saturday, he spends the day over at Bill’s house. He’d offered to help clean up the back yard which had not been tended to in some time. A six-pack of beer on the patio table offers refreshment in between their activities, and Holden keeps wandering over to the shaded porch to watch Bill pull weeds out of the flower beds. He’s supposed to be combing the lawn for branches and twigs so that they don’t get caught up in the mower later on, but observing Bill toiling in direct sunlight with sweat rolling down his temples and chest is far more enjoyable. 

Holden takes a sip of his beer, letting the cold, sharp flavor roll down into his belly where heat sourced from some place much deeper than sweat and sunlight is beginning to swell. The drone of insects is loud, but he can hardly hear the white noise beyond his own racing thoughts. Threads of fantasy are already forming - Bill carrying him into the house, his hands coarse from physical labor, his body firm, hot, sweating, his skin tasting of perspiration and lust. 

“What do you think you’re doing?” 

Holden jolts out of his little reverie when Bill leans back on his heels to cast him a questioning scowl. 

“I’m taking a little break. Why don’t you join me?”

“You said you would help me with this.”

“I am.”

“Really? It looks to me like you’re enjoying the shade and the beer while I’m working my ass off.”

Holden sighs, and checks his watch. “It’s almost lunch time.”

“Almost. Not quite. Get back to work.”

Suppressing a whine, Holden sets his beer down and marches back out into the lawn where the sunshine is beating down in oppressive waves. 

Later on, after they’ve eaten lunch and cooled off indoors with the air conditioning, Holden plops down on the couch next to Bill. The midafternoon baseball game is playing on the television, holding Bill’s attention while he smokes a cigarette. Observing his calm profile, Holden wonders if he’s at all thinking about their stupid little pact or feeling taxed by the undertaking. Outwardly, he doesn’t look bothered at all, which is even more frustrating.

Holden creeps closer, nudging his way under Bill’s arm so that he is cuddled up against his side. 

Bill glances down at him, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. He curls his arm around Holden’s shoulder, and gives him an affectionate squeeze. 

Biting his lower lip, Holden rests his head against Bill’s shoulder. He tries to focus on the baseball game, but he’s never had much interest in the sport. The stretch of time between plays is almost as agonizing as abstinence, the staticy hum of the crowd over intense observation between the pitcher and the hitter like some kind of torturous tension just waiting to be snapped. 

Holden’s attention quickly wanders from the television as he slips his hand against Bill’s chest, languidly feeling out the swell of his pec, the steady drum of his heartbeat against his ribs, the warmth of his skin beneath his shirt. Leaning closer, he presses a kiss to Bill’s jawline, and nuzzles his nose into the warm crevice of his throat. 

Bill’s fingers tighten incrementally around his shoulder, but he doesn’t protest. Maybe he’s questioning whether he wants to wait a whole two weeks; maybe Holden can convince him that the idea was silly and unnecessary. 

Turning closer against Bill’s side, Holden nestles kisses along his jawline and throat while he creeps his leg across Bill’s lap. As he reaches the base of Bill’s throat, he flicks his tongue out to taste the salt of dried perspiration in the ridge of his collarbone. 

Bill grunts a quiet sound of need, and reaches down to clutch at the curve of Holden’s spine. It’s all the affirmation Holden needs, and he eagerly crawls onto Bill’s lap, lifting his head to plant a hungry kiss on his mouth. 

Their mouths collide heatedly, tongues immediately surging forward into a rhythmic, meeting stroke. Holden groans, opening his mouth wider to the push of Bill’s tongue, the faint sting of his teeth nibbling at the lower lip. 

Bill’s hands grope down his spine to claim his backside, kneading the ample flesh in a firm grasp, urging Holden’s hips against him. Holden moans, eagerly complying, finding his cock already standing hard against his trousers when he ruts against the warmth of Bill’s belly. 

“Oh fuck …” Holden whispers as their mouths tear apart. “I want you so bad.”

Bill gazes up at him past half-shut eyes, his teeth scraping across his lower lip that’s stretching into a smirk. He reaches between them to touch Holden through his trousers, the heel of his hand grinding along the pulsing shaft. 

Holden lurches against him, whimpering out desperate need. 

“Fuck, baby; you’re so hard.” Bill mutters, his voice low and choked. 

“For you.” Holden whispers, humping into the groping touch of Bill’s hand. 

His cock gives a needy throb, fighting against the restraint of fabric and longing for skin-on-skin contact. 

“Christ, you’d think you haven’t come for weeks getting this hard.” Bill adds, softly, his touch easing up.

Holden pants, biting back a moan. “Bill, please-”

“You said you could do it.”

“I know I did.”

“Well, can you?”

“Yes. . . No. . . I don’t know.” Holden whispers, dropping his forehead to Bill’s shoulder. 

Bill’s hand rubs soothingly along his lower back as Holden huddles over him, shuddering through ebbing waves of arousal that seem to take forever to sink back down into nothing. He chuckles quietly, his breath hot against Holden’s ear. 

“I said you didn’t have to.”

“I know. But I want to.” Holden lifts his head from Bill’s shoulder, belly twisting with deviant, self-destructive need as he meets Bill’s stern gaze. “I want you to make me.”

Bill’s mouth purses into a thin line as he swallows hard.

Holden’s cheeks grow hotter as the admission settles into the air between them. He can see a small, dark door opening inside his chest, an undiscovered desire suddenly bursting into the light; he hadn’t recognized it for what it was until this very moment, but it has the same humiliating quality as that moment in the hotel when Bill first walked in on him. 

Bill’s hands clutch tighter at his waist as he leans in to drop a kiss against the corner of Holden’s mouth. 

“You’re sure?” He murmurs, his voice a low, scraped timbre that makes tingles scatter down Holden’s spine. 

He presses his eyes shut, nodding eagerly despite the desperation and mortification spiraling through his chest. 

“All right.” Bill says, giving his hips a nudge. “You better get off me then.”

Holden dismounts his lap, and sinks down against the couch cushions with a shuddering sigh. His erection is flagging, dogged and put down by his own shame, but a strange heat coils low in his belly, simmering embers that won’t be so quickly put out. His belly feels heavy with unsatisfied need, all his arousal contained and trapped inside him. He has a feeling that raw, swollen sensation will last through the next week and a half, and suddenly, two weeks feels like some small eternity. 

He tries to put it out of his mind when they go back outside to finish the yard work. This time, he’s more focused on the task at hand, and after laboring for another few hours, he realizes some of the desperation has slacked off into a bearable ache. He feels calmer now that the choice has been taken entirely out of his hands, and he doesn’t have to depend on his own unreliable resolve. 

Still, he isn’t prepared when he wakes up the next morning in Bill’s bed, a dull, pounding throb leading him from dreams into reality. His eyelids flutter open to sunlight and the sheets tossed down around his knees. His underwear is pulled back to reveal his hard cock, wrapped up in Bill’s slowly jerking fist. Bill had lathered him in Vaseline to eliminate any friction, leaving his body streaking quickly towards pleasure like a fiery comet charging untethered through space. 

“Ohh …” He groans his voice, choked and raspy from sleep. “Oh, fuck-”

His hazy eyes roll upward to glimpse Bill propped on his elbow beside him, quietly watching Holden’s charging pleasure unfold before him, entirely at his mercy. His expression is calm yet pleased, and Holden can see the undercurrent of devious resolve - he has no intention of letting this moment lead to completion. 

Despite the realization, Holden can’t stop the helpless shudder of his body quickly submitting to the slow, skilled touch.

“Oh, please …” He whimpers, reaching up to brace his fists around the rungs of the headboard as waves of arousal roll through him. “Bill, oh god-”

Bill’s touch doesn’t waver. Slow and meticulous, it squeezes along the shaft in languid pulls that makes the pleasure hover and burn rather than explode. 

Holden’s heels dig into the mattress, urging his hips up against the grinding caress. He pants helplessly, his eyes slamming shut against the burst of white pleasure behind his eyelids. The pressure between his thighs is incredible, the threat of orgasm hanging like a swollen stormcloud ready to burst. 

“Oh, fuck-” Holden gasps, writhing desperately against the touch. 

“You’re close?” Bill whispers, leaning down to nuzzle a kiss against Holden’s cheek. 

“Yes, yes-” Holden chokes out, nodding vigorously. 

“Good.” Bill murmurs. His hand doesn’t stray, wringing it out of Holden slowly, torturously. “Tell me when you’re about to come.”

A desperate whimper climbs Holden’s throat, and he shakes his head feverishly. 

“Please, don’t … Don’t stop, I’m-”

“Tell me.” Bill insists, softly. 

Holden pants through his nostrils, and his hips writhe beneath Bill’s stroking hand. He’s swimming in arousal, watching it crest towards him gradually. Bill wants him right on the edge, that narrow window between stopping the intense arousal and being unable to force it back down again. 

His heart pounds as the moment stretches on, Bill’s steady massaging pulling him closer and closer towards the rising tide. His groin clamps taut and the heat swells; he doesn’t want it to end, but he can’t imagine what would happen if he didn’t speak at just the right time, if he orgasmed and ruined Bill’s plan. 

“Oh, oh …” He whimpers, pulling away from Bill’s touch. “I’m gonna come, I’m gonna come.”

Bill’s hand retreats, leaving his cock gleaming and pink and throbbing against his belly. The intense, pre-orgasmic tingles linger for a dangerous few moments before melting down into the dull, intrusive ache of unsated pleasure. His cock twitches helplessly, innate instincts not getting the message that his arousal is dead in the water. 

Holden’s squeezed eyelids slip open as Bill trails his fingers along his inner thigh, gently urging his legs open wider. A groan pushes against the back of his throat, but he complies. His trembling thighs fall open against the sheets, displaying his engorged, tortured cock lying viciously, aroused pink against his pale stomach. 

“Fuck.” Bill whispers, pressing a kiss to his temple. “You look way too good like this.”

Holden whimpers quietly through his nose, trying to pin down the eager tremble of need that goes through him in response to Bill’s whispered praises. He follows Bill’s heated gaze down to his cock where his erection lingers stubbornly, dreaming of release even as the possibility drifts further and further from reality. 

“I want to keep you like this … for days.” Bill adds, softly, caressing Holden’s thigh. 

Holden’s eyes slip shut again, overwrought tears stinging at the corners of his eyes. His chest is tight with desperation and need, but pleasure erupts across the back of his mind.

“Y-yes.” He whispers, his voice choking, “Please. Whatever you want.”

Bill tucks his fingers under Holden’s chin, turning his face towards him. Holden opens his eyes to meet Bill’s stoic gaze, trying not to shudder beneath the intensity of it. A silent, yawning need opens between them, satisfaction that hadn’t been uncovered until this moment. 

“You hate me for this.” Bill says, chuckling softly and shaking his head. “Don’t you?”

“No. Well, maybe a little.” Holden whispers, biting back a smile. “But, I … I like it, too.”

“Good.” Bill murmurs, kissing him softly. He glances down at Holden’s still half-hard cock. “How does it feel?”

“It aches. I still feel like I could come right away if you touched me again.”

“Mm, well, I’m not. I think you better get up and go take a cold shower.” Bill says, leaning back and entirely divesting Holden of his touch. 

Holden muffles a groan in both of his palms clutched over his face. He pushes himself upright, and casts Bill a suggestive gaze. 

“Join me?” 

“Not a chance.” Bill says, his mouth tilted in a roguish smirk. 

“Your loss.” Holden says, tossing a smile over his shoulder as he heads for the bedroom door. 

“Hey, Holden.”

“Yeah?” 

Bill rolls over to prop himself up on his elbow, casting Holden a stern gaze. “You better not be touching yourself in there.”

Holden coyly bites his lower lip. “Not a chance.” 


	2. Week Two

On Tuesday, one week since their little abstinence experiment began, Holden goes to work with a sense of unfounded pride in himself that is quickly perforated the moment he lays eyes on Bill. His sense of “ _ I made it one week, and I can make it one more”  _ turns into a desperate “ _ Oh God, I can’t take this much longer.”  _

Every slight glance from Bill, whether intentional or not, sends waves of heat rolling down into Holden’s belly as the private knowledge of denial quietly spans the distance of the bullpen. Accidental contact - a hand on his shoulder, the nudge of a foot under the conference room table - threatens to make his self-control collapse like a fragile house of cards at any moment. He can only hope that no one else at work can see that he’s suffering, that every staid moment of polite, professional contact with Bill is like pure torture to his yearning body.

He’s certain that if the agreement had been purely mutual rather than compulsory, he never would have made it this far; but he has no idea what would happen if he didn’t follow the rules or if Bill somehow found out that he’d been masturbating in private - which isn’t to say he hasn’t thought of it. He thinks of it every night when he’s home alone, and the memory of the last time Bill touched him, only to revoke the pleasure at the last second, plays on repeat across the back of his mind. He thinks of slipping his hand under his briefs just for a second, but he knows where that will lead - and he knows, despite his agony, that he’d meant it when he told Bill he wants to be subjugated into denial. 

He stubbornly stays the course through the rest of the week, burying his head in work and staying late to avoid being home alone in the evenings. These days, filled with case files and profiles and dead bodies, slip by quickly enough; it’s when the weekend creeps back around that the real torture begins - when they’re alone again with nothing separating them, no cases or co-workers to distract from fraught, repressed desire. 

They spend all of Saturday barely touching one another, a task more difficult than Holden first anticipated, since the barest graze of Bill’s fingers on him makes his belly twist with need; on Sunday night, Bill doesn’t hold back in such a way. 

It starts slowly while they’re laying in bed, enjoying the mutual, comfortable silence while they each read a book. Bill sets aside his own novel, and rolls close, slipping a hand under the hem of Holden’s t-shirt and a soft kiss to his neck. Holden frowns, focusing on the words on the page, but his concentration has already flown free of the story, centering hazily on the fiery traction of Bill’s hand climbing his ribs. When it reaches his nipple, thumb and forefinger plucking at the tender flesh, he can’t help the whimper that rises in his throat. 

“Wh … what are you doing?” He whispers, casting Bill an aggrieved grimace. 

“Shh. Just lay still.” Bill murmurs, his tone relaxed and controlled even as his thumb circles Holden’s hardening nipple. 

Holden endures in motionless rigidity, breathing through his nose and trying to stave off the growing erection, but Bill is cruelly determined. He moves across Holden’s chest to his other nipple, stroking and squeezing and twisting until Holden submits, dropping the book on the nightstand and raising his arms submissively over his head. 

Bill tugs the t-shirt up past his chest, exposing Holden’s flushed, hard nipples peaking on his heaving chest. He bends to take one in his mouth as he slides his hand down Holden’s quivering belly to stroke his cock through his pajama pants. 

Holden shudders, biting his lower lip against a whimper. He wants to beg Bill not to do this to him, that he can’t handle it, but his body aches for the touch even as it knows he’s going to be denied orgasm again. His hips are masochistically leaning into the caress when Bill tugs his trousers down, freeing his hard cock to twitch against his belly. 

Bill leans back as he tosses the trousers away and urges Holden’s legs open against the sheets. His gaze wanders down Holden’s straining, shuddering body, the perusal tracking like fire across tender, needy skin. He presses a kiss to Holden’s temple, just looking for so long that Holden begins to whine and writhe helplessly. 

“Please …”

“Please what?”

“Do something. Anything.” Holden moans, digging his heels into the mattress to lift his hips in offering. 

“You want me to touch you?”

“Yes.”

“Are you going to come if I do?”

“No. I’ll … I’ll tell you when I’m close.” Holden whispers, haltingly. 

Bill hums a pleased sigh against his temple, and generously slides his palm down Holden’s inner thigh and towards his cock. 

Holden shudders from deep inside, but doesn’t move as Bill’s hand reaches his groin. The touch wanders across his swollen balls, barely applying pressure, but setting him afire nonetheless. His mouth stretches open in a breathless cry and his hips shudder beneath the caress that quickly draws every muscle taut and tingling with the thought of orgasm. 

Bill's kneading touch moves from his balls to his cock, wrapping firmly around the shaft and shifting into a slow massage. 

Holden’s eyes roll back as arousal surges through him. His back arches and his hands clutch at the sheets while rifts of need roll through him, cresting low in his belly and rising into a mass of aching tingles. 

“Oh my god …” He chokes out, his brow furrowing in concentration against orgasm. 

He hangs on until the very last moment, pushing the pleasure down as hard as he can while he enjoys the firm stroke of Bill’s hand, getting himself dangerously close to coming before he whispers the broken plea, “Oh, fuck, I’m gonna come.”

Bill’s hand uncurls, leaving him shuddering and leaking at the tip, so close to orgasm that he can almost feel it rolling in subdued waves between his thighs. Holden pants quietly, keeping his eyes squeezed shut against the image of his tortured body lying naked and trembling, subject to Bill’s unmerciful touch. 

Bill presses kisses to his forehead and cheek while he calms down. His hands don’t touch again until Holden sinks down against the sheets, his breathing evened out, his cock flagging slightly. Only then does it begin again, feeling out the dips and curves of his chest, his belly, his hips, his thighs. Holden is kneaded into a limp mass of trembling flesh and aching, burning arousal again by the time Bill’s fingertips stroke him, gently taking up his cock, toying with him, testing his flustered willpower.

It’s slower this time, more deliberate. It takes several minutes of delicate touches and fleeting massages for Holden to feel himself being dragged gradually yet persistently back towards the verge of orgasm. He begins to whine, twisting away from Bill’s touch, but Bill pins his thighs open against the sheets with a firm order, “Be still.”

“I can’t …” Holden whimpers, arching feverishly as Bill’s fingertips track down the swollen, angry pink shaft of his cock. 

He endures the tickling sensation for only a few seconds before he breaks free, trying to push Bill’s hand away while a tortured groan rises from the back of his throat. Bill’s hand fights its way back between his legs, ignoring Holden’s deliriously batting knuckles, to gather his cock up in a firm grasp. 

“Oh, please …” Holden gasps, writhing uncontrollably against the sheets. “Please, I’m so close. I’m gonna come, I’m gonna-”

Bill’s hand leaves him - leaves his pleasure halting and barren, leaves his skin aching and humming. His body quakes, high on adrenaline and useless endorphins, signals of orgasm getting lost inside the haze of his brain. His pleasure races and races only to butt up against the stoic wall along the back of his mind that warns him he’s not going to be coming, wanting to break free, an ingrained instinct too ancient to be silenced by something like logic. 

When the searching caress starts back up again, he groans low and tortured from the back of his throat. “Oh, please …”

Bill chuckles softly against his ear. “I could do this to you all night.”

Holden can’t conjure more than a moan, not even an objection. He clasps his hands over his face as Bill crawls down between his legs, adding a new layer of torture this already agonizing scene of repeated denial. Still, he doesn’t fight; he lets his legs fall open limply, too enamored of Bill’s mouth on him to say no. 

Hands and mouth stroke him conservatively, not too hard, just enough to entice; feathery breath and grazing fingertips drive him to the verge over and over again, until he’s sweating and straining, quietly crying, “I’m going to come.” The admission seals his fate as it had each time before, touch pulled back, leaving his skin bare and hard and pulsing, unfulfilled need raging inside the fragile, engorged length. 

After Bill pushes him to the edge this third and final time only to withdraw again, Holden curls onto his side, and buries his face in Bill’s chest with a shuddering exhale. Every nerve feels strung out and frayed, his body caught somewhere between a dazed, floating sensation of overstimulation and the sinking, lead weight of immense arousal in his belly. 

Bill presses a kiss to the top of his head, his breath warm across Holden’s scalp. The little sensations blaze across his worn nerve-endings, triggering a low ripple of tingles along his spine. 

“You okay?” Bill murmurs. 

“I don’t know if I can do this.”

“Yes, you can.”

“No, I don’t think so.” Holden whimpers, pushing his forehead against Bill’s breastbone. “I can’t … I want to come so bad it fucking hurts.”

“You said you wanted me to make you do it.”

Holden swallows back a groan. “I’m such an idiot.”

Bill’s chuckle rumbles from deep in his chest. 

“How is this not affecting you?” Holden demands, lifting his head to cast Bill a scathing glare. “Are you getting off without me? Because that would be really unfair.”

“No.”

“Then how are you this calm?”

“Holden, I was in the Army. I was married. I know about self-control and discipline.”

“Well, aren’t you just a paragon of restraint.” 

Bill smirks, and leans back against the pillows with his hands laced behind his head. Holden can see that he has an erection, but he doesn’t seem perturbed by it’s achy presence. 

“What can I say? I’ve had years of practice. It’s not my fault you indulge every whimsy that crosses your mind.”

“No, I don’t.”

Bill scoffs. 

Sighing, Holden sinks back against the sheets. There’s no use in arguing. 

“What would happen?” He whispers, staring up at the ceiling. 

“If?”

“If, I … you know-” Holden whispers, choking on the suggestion. 

“Came?” 

His cheeks flush hotter. “Yes.”

“I don’t know. I guess we would have to start over.”

Holden cuts a gaze back to him, his mouth slipping open in horror. “Start the two weeks over?”

“Or three. For breaking the rules.”

Holden blinks as he holds Bill’s reserved gaze. The levity of the conversation has stripped away, leaving only the iron fist of Bill’s will clamping down on Holden’s needs. His belly warms with fresh heat, a slippery, writhing sensation of amalgamating shame and desire that makes his cock twitch against his thigh. 

Bill rolls up onto his elbow, settling down on his side next to Holden’s trembling body. 

“Listen, I know it’s difficult.” He says, grazing his palm up Holden’s belly and shuddering ribs. “But I promise you, when this is over - when you finally come - it’s going to be worth it.”

“You promise?” Holden echoes, skeptically.

Bill bends down to press a kiss to his mouth, muttering an affirmation into the tender, slick join of lips. “Yes. You’re going to come so hard.”

Holden whimpers into the deepening kiss, letting his mouth go pliant to Bill’s searching tongue. He doesn’t try to argue again. 

He doesn’t know how to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’, he thinks. He doesn’t know how to do anything other than to submit to his desires - desires which are intrinsically linked to Bill, to this sweet torture that he’s putting them both through. If he knew how to wield his needs, he might be out there doing to someone else what Bill is currently doing to him; but he isn’t. He’s just the victim of his own urges, to Bill - and he’ll keep falling prey to both of them every time. 

~

Holden goes to work on Monday morning with renewed resolve. He only has to make it through today and tomorrow before he reaches the finish line, and compared to what he’s already endured for the past week and a half, those handful of hours should be a breeze. 

He spends the morning at his desk, keenly focused on the details of the profile that he’s working on. Around ten o’clock, when Bill is usually coming over to the break room to get a second cup of coffee, Holden prepares a cup the way he likes it and a tea for himself. He carries both over to the annex where Bill is hunched over his desk with a cigarette and a ream of case files and crime scene photos spread out in front of him. 

“Hey,” Holden says. 

Bill looks up from the pictures, and takes his reading glasses off. 

“Hey.” He says, leaning back in his chair with a smile. “Is that for me?”

“Yes.” 

Holden crosses the office to extend the cup of coffee to Bill. 

"Thanks." Bill says.

As he takes a sip, Holden sits down across from him with his tea cradled in both hands. 

“What are you working on?” He asks. 

“Jackson, Wyoming. The locals are officially inviting us in.” Bill says, his brow creased with a frown. His mouth purses for a moment before he releases a vexed sigh. “I’m leaving this afternoon.”

Holden gazes at him in alarm as the implication sinks in, feeling his heart dropping down into his stomach. He leans forward to set his cup of tea on the edge of Bill’s desk, suddenly too flushed to be in contact with the hot styrofoam. 

“How long will you be gone?”

“I don’t know. You know how these things go.”

Holden nods, slowly. Inside, he wants to slide to the floor and throw a tantrum fit for a toddler, but he maintains a reserved expression. He’s already this far into the challenge of abstinence, and he can’t crumble now - not even at the thought of the deadline being delayed by another few days or even another week. 

Bill rises from his desk, and silently walks past Holden to ease the door shut. 

Holden flinches at the sound of the latch clicking shut, rendering utter silence and privacy. He draws in a shuddering breath as Bill walks back over to him, and leans against the desk. 

“You know, I couldn’t have planned this even if I tried.” He says, quietly. 

“No, I know.” Holden says, hastily, glancing away as his cheeks burn. “Do you, um … do you think there’s a chance I could come with you?”

“I don’t think so.” Bill says, crossing his arms over his chest. “We still have to be professional, even if we are sleeping together. We’ve got a lot of work here at the office, and not enough bodies for us to be doubling up on consults anymore.”

“I know, you don’t have to lecture me.” Holden says, sharply, jumping up from the chair. 

He turns to march back toward the door, but Bill catches him by the elbow. The force of his own momentum being jarred to a halt spins him back around against Bill’s chest. The brusque, accidental contact surges down his body like a rumbling earthquake, threatening to pull him apart at the seams. 

“Hey, look at me.” Bill says, softly yet firmly. 

Holden slowly lifts his gaze from the floor, clenching his jaw against the rising frustration. 

“I’m just as disappointed as you are, but this is our life - we have to expect being called out of town.”

“So it’s my fault? Because I should have known? Because I should have foreseen this outcome?” Holden says, pulling his arm out of Bill’s grip. He paces away, rubbing his forehead. “God, I am so stupid. I can’t believe you talked me into this.”

“Well, I did. And look how far you made it already. You can do another few days.”

“When exactly are you leaving?” Holden asks, spinning around to pin Bill with a desperate gaze. 

“Three o’clock.”

Holden shoots a quick glance at his watch. “It’s ten-fifteen right now. We have time. We could take a long lunch, or-”

“Hold on a second-”

“Why not? I know it’s Monday - but it’s just one day shy. Do you really care to split hairs that closely?”

Bill regards him coolly for a long moment before lifting his shoulders. “Yeah, I kind of do.”

Holden’s mouth slips partially open in shocked horror and disbelief. 

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope.” 

“Bill, you have no idea how long you’re going to be gone for.” Holden says, well aware that his tone is bordering on panic, but unable to stop it. “It could be two days or two weeks. I can’t wait another two weeks - can you?”

“I’m a patient man.” Bill says, unperturbed as he circles his desk to sit back down in front of the case files. 

Holden stares at him, aghast. He can think of a dozen frustrated and horrified things to say right this moment, but all of them are tangled up in the back of his throat, in his swimming needs crammed down and repressed inside the quaking borders of his undisciplined flesh. 

Bill puts his reading glasses back on, and takes a drag of his cigarette. When Holden doesn’t say anything else or turn to leave, he casts an stern gaze over the rim of his glasses. 

“Holden, I have a lot of material here to go through before I head out. I can't be running out in the middle of the day to fulfill some personal impulse. You get that, right?"

Holden clenches his jaw. Glancing away from Bill’s searching gaze, he focuses on the neatly arranged photos in the whiteboard until the realization that Bill is right sinks past his stubborn frustrations. He gives a stiff nod. 

"Good. Then, if you’re not going to help me with the profile ….”

“No, I’m not helping you.” 

“Okay, then …” Bill says, nodding at the door. 

Holden glares at him for a moment longer before sauntering out of the office. He lets the door slam shut behind him, the sound echoing past the ringing phones, the clatter of typewriters, the interns gossiping around the fax machine. 

When he gets back to his desk, the focus he had once had on his work is gone; all he can think about is Sunday night, Bill’s mouth wrapped around his cock, how he should have let himself come right then and there consequences be damned. But underneath, a smaller voice whispers its withering, pathetic approval, its longing for this torture to extend another few days, or as long as Bill wishes it. That voice had led him into a sexual relationship with Bill, and it had led him right up to this moment. He couldn’t silence it even if he tried. 

~

Bill calls from Jackson, Wyoming that night, and Holden rushes to answer the phone despite his lingering frustration. He had been watching television aimlessly in the living room, trying to distract himself from the thoughts of desire that keep trodding unbidden across the back of his mind. Every time he closes his eyes, he remembers the way Bill had repeatedly brought him to the edge on their last night together, and even that intense, painful longing makes him hard again. 

When the phone rings, he darts into the bedroom to answer the call, and sinks back against the pillows with the receiver cradled to his ear. 

“Hello?”

“Hey, it’s me.” Bill says, “Sorry it’s late. It’s been a long day.”

“It’s okay. I’m still up.”

“Good, I needed to hear your voice.”

“Me, too.” Holden says, rolling over and pressing his forehead into the pillow as the low, gravelling notes of Bill’s voice alone make his blood surge. “How’s the case?”

“Rough. Pre-teen girls.” 

“Do you want to talk about it?”  
“Not really. I’ve done enough talking about it for the past few hours. We’ve got a couple good leads. Hopefully it’s over soon.”

“I hope so, too. I miss you already.”

“I can hear it in your voice.” Bill says, softly, a note of affection reaching past the exhaustion of consult. “How are you doing?”

“Terrible.” Holden murmurs, “I can’t stop thinking about Sunday night. You … touching me until it hurt.”

Bill’s exhale ripples across the line. “Fuck …”

“I’m so hard right now.” 

“I bet you are. Are you touching yourself yet?”

“No. I don’t think I should. I’m not sure I could stop myself if …”

“I’ll tell you when to stop.” Bill suggests. 

“I won’t forgive you if I come and ruin all of our hard work.” Holden says, tersely. “Seriously. I’ll never do this again.”

Bill chuckles. “You have such little faith in yourself. I think you can handle more than you think you can.”

“You just want to hear me suffer, don’t you?” 

Bill utters an indistinct hum in response, but Holden can already hear the satisfaction weaving through the concealed notes of his voice. 

“You’re sick.” Holden murmurs, rolling onto his back and dropping his hand between his legs. “Really messed up, you know that?”

“More than you orchestrating me walking in on you?”  
“We’re not talking about me.” Holden mumbles, his eyes slipping shut as his hand curls around his cock through the fabric of his pajama pants and underwear. 

“Fair enough.” Bill says, laughing softly. “And yeah, I kind of do.” 

Holden groans, his eyes slipping open to glimpse his hand rubbing over his bulging erection. 

“Oh, fuck … You should see this right now. I’m so hard.”

“What are you wearing?”

“My pajamas.”

“Take those off.”

Holden leaves the phone cradled between his chin and shoulder as he paws at his trousers with trembling hands. Once he manages to yank them off his ankles, he curls a hand around his bare, throbbing cock. The flesh leaps to his touch as if burned, raw from one too many unsated erections, one too many caresses without climax.

Moaning into the receiver, he arches against the languid graze of his palm that incites a fresh wave of thundering arousal. It’s harder now than ever before to envision this moment not ending in release. The temptation to let it overwhelm him is strong, but he can hear Bill breathing heavily from across the distance of miles. 

“Fuck. I wish I could see you.” Bill whispers, his voice low and choked with need. 

“Oh, yes. I’m so hard it hurts …” Holden moans, “God, I want to come so bad.”

“Stop.”

“I can’t …”

“Yes. Just stop for a minute. Calm down.”

Holden groans as he pulls his hand away from his cock, leaving it to writhe in agony against his belly. The hum of need ripples low in his belly, coming in shallow waves that threaten to overwhelm him even as he lies untouched. 

“Fuck.” Holden whispers, rubbing a hand over his eyes. “This is bad. I’m so close already.”

“I know. Just breathe through it.”

Holden nods, focusing on the slow inhale, his lungs and belly expanding against his ribs, the flush of oxygen soothing his flustered nerves. Gradually, the hum of tingles abates into a dull, manageable ache, the rigid hardness dissipating to a half-hard thrum. 

“Okay.” He whispers, pushing a hand against his inner thigh. 

“You good?” Bill asks. 

“Yes, I … I thought I was going to come.” Holden says, opening his eyes to the dizzy twirl of his ceiling cast in familiar lamplight. “That was close.”

“Keep going.” Bill urges. 

“I don’t know if I can. I really feel like I’m going to come.”

“Then don’t jerk off. Just finger yourself.” 

Holden swallows hard. “Okay.”

“You think you can handle that?”

“Yes.” 

Pushing up on his elbow, Holden reaches over to get the Vaseline out of the drawer. He pants quietly into the receiver as he unscrews the lid and dips his fingers into the cool ointment. Falling back against the pillows, he lifts his knees, and smooths his slick fingers down the cleft. 

“Oh, Jesus …” He whimpers, biting at his lower lip as his hole flinches to his touch. 

Bill’s breathing quickens against the static. “You’re doing it?”

“Yes, I …” Holden nearly loses his breath as his finger penetrates himself. “Oh my god …”

“Fuck …” Bill whispers, his own voice approaching a tortured groan. “You’ve got me so turned on.”

“Good.” Holden pants, “I hope it’s just as bad for you as it is for me.”

Bill chuckles, then groans. “Mm, I can’t wait to fuck you.”

Holden can’t think of a response as he thrusts his finger and out of his slick hole, applying just enough friction to glean some satisfaction out of the stroke without pushing himself over the edge. He doesn’t get anywhere near his prostate, but simply fucks himself quickly and deliberately, wishing he was working himself open for Bill’s cock. 

Instead, he spends the next fifteen minutes panting and groaning, rolling over onto his knees, thrusting into the inadequate penetration of his fingers while Bill quietly urges from the other end of the line. A few times, he gets himself closer to coming, but Bill stops him each time with gentle warning. By the time he sinks down against the sheets, trembling and muscles burning from dissatisfied exertion, his backside and hands are a slick mess of Vaseline and his cock is aching against his belly - a sensation he’s getting terribly accustomed to. 

“You’re done for tonight?” Bill asks, softly. 

“I think so. I’m exhausted.”

“Me, too. You did good.”

“I did?”

“Yes. So good. As soon as I come home, I’m fucking you so hard. No delays this time. I’m going to fuck the orgasm right out of you.”

Holden bites his lower lip against a shuddering smile as fresh exhilaration expands in his belly. 

“I’m looking forward to it.”

“Good. Now go get cleaned up and get some rest. Did you eat?”

“Yes, I had dinner.”

“Good. It sounds like it’s time for bed.”

Holden stifles a yawn, and hums his agreement. “Yeah.”

“Okay. I’ll let you go.”

“Okay.” Holden whispers, swallowing down his disappointment. He doesn’t want to hang up yet despite the yearning ache of dissatisfaction dwelling between his thighs. “Call me tomorrow?”

“Of course.”

There’s a beat of silence, both of them waiting for the other to say goodbye first. Finally, Bill clears his throat. 

“Okay, I’ll go. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.” 

After they hang up, Holden lays in the disarray of bed sheets and sprawled limbs for several long moments until his body slows down and his erection wilts. Self-pity crawls its way into his belly, and he squeezes his eyes shut against frustrated tears. The drama of his surging emotions only heightens the needs into the stratosphere with that frayed sensation of coming apart, bursting with frantic desire. He lets himself wallow in it, lets that feeling grow; then he quietly asks the universe to be kind just once, and let Bill come home before the week’s end. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise! Chapter 3: Week 3 coming next week 😌💛


	3. Week Three

Tuesday night, Bill doesn’t call until much later. The conversation is brief, and they’re both exhausted. Holden says that he can’t do it again tonight. Weary and sleep-deprived, Bill doesn’t argue. They hang up after less than an hour, and Holden goes to bed with disappointment crushing his chest. It sounds like the investigation in Jackson is heating up, but that could mean any number of things for the timeline. Sometimes, a promising lead comes along and it feels like the closing chapter of the investigation right before it turns into nothing; sometimes, that final push leads to a quick arrest. 

For the next two days, Holden does his best to manage his expectations. While he has the distraction of work, he convinces himself that he could handle it if this case in Wyoming required Bill to be gone for more than a week, but when he’s home alone at night, he’s silently, achingly daydreaming of a swift conclusion to the investigation, a dozen scenarios in which Bill returns and fucks him in every position and from every angle imaginable. 

On Friday night, Bill has enough time after coming back from the precinct for them to spend the better part of two hours on the phone. The first hour of conversation is filled with catching one another up on work and the case, before it eventually devolves into heated, needy exchanges, sexual desires filtering across the static and heavy breathing. Holden touches himself conservatively at first, trying to ward off desperation, but his own urges are quick to overpower him. He ends up on his knees again, ass raised in the air, Vaseline-slick fingers thrusting into his asshole while he moans frantic need into the telephone. 

The next day, the weekend unfolds into the perfect summer day. Blue skies, sunshine. He goes for a run and does some household chores in the morning before deciding to head into work for just a few hours to stave off his thoughts. For the past several months, ever since he and Bill started sleeping together, he hasn’t wanted to go into the office on a weekend, but as it stands, he sees no other choice. If he stays at home all day, he’ll only be tempting himself into doing something he shouldn’t. 

“A few hours” turns into five, then six. The sun is beginning to dip into early dusk by the time he leaves Quantico, stops for carry-out, and heads home. He eats in front of the television, letting the film playing out across the screen attempt to carry his thoughts away from the restless itch burrowed deeply into his groin. 

While the sun goes down, he gets a shower, takes his time shaving, and puts on a clean pair of pajamas. Crawling into bed, he takes his book off the nightstand, and casts a dour glance at the clock. It’s almost eight, and if it was a good day for the case, Bill should be calling him soon. If not, a phone call is still a few hours off. 

He tries to focus on his book, but ends up re-reading several paragraphs while last night’s phone tryst wanders in vivid detail across the back of his mind. He’d gotten so close to orgasming that he was breathless and seeing stars when he stopped touching himself long enough to get the climbing urge under control. Bill told him he did good the way he always does, but it strikes differently when there’s no release, no mess to clean up, no nuzzling kisses and lazy embraces in the wake of spent passion. It looks more like a carrot on a stick, dangled temptingly in front of his nose with no end in sight. 

Holden is so lost in thought that his heart nearly bolts out of his chest when he hears the front door of his apartment open and shut again. He sits upright, casting aside the book; he’s abruptly trembling, his heart thudding against his ribs, his veins surging anew with fire. For a moment, he thinks he was hearing things, but the tell-tale, creaky floorboard in his hallway makes his blood pressure spike harder. 

Bill pauses in the doorway, tucking his keys in his pocket. He’s dressed in a blue shirt, free of the tie, the top two buttons undone. The sleeves are rolled up his forearms, and the tails are untucked. His expression holds a pleased smirk, his eyes gleaming as he regards Holden’s shocked, relieved expression. 

“Bill, you’re back.” Holden breathes, clinging to the bed sheets with trembling fists. 

“Yep.” Bill says, spreading his hands. 

“Why … why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you call?”

Bill’s mouth tilts in a smile as he shifts away from the doorway, and saunters across the room. As he draws closer, Holden draws in a hitched breath, and hesitantly lifts his chin to meet Bill’s amused, clinging gaze.

He reaches down to stroke Holden’s chin with his thumb, gently guiding his head back further. 

“Because, I didn’t want to walk into the middle of anything.” Bill says. 

“I would have waited for you.”

“Would you have?”

“Yes.” Holden says, his voice wavering around the devoted response. 

“Hmm, maybe.” Bill says, scoffing a quiet laugh. “Either way, I don’t want you touching yourself at all tonight. I’m going to make you come. Okay?”

Holden’s mouth moves in hollow, astonished agreement. He can feel all the blood in his body parting like the Red Sea at his chest, half of it surging to his face, the other half racing to his groin. He nods instead, telegraphing eager desire through his wide-eyed gaze. 

Bill bends down to kiss him, keeping a firm grasp on his chin. The kiss lands open-mouthed and slick, his lips taking Holden’s, tasting, stroking, and licking up against his exposed palate. Both hands clutch Holden’s jaw, pinning his head back into submission and dragging his mouth closer into the burning friction of lips and teeth. The force of it garners a long moan from Holden’s throat that vibrates in between their stroking lips.

Need thunders through Holden’s body, arousal building low in his belly like an approaching lightning strike. He can feel every inch of his skin, all of him yearning to be touched, the clothes on his back burning, and his body charging ahead of this moment towards the approaching future of abject pleasure. 

He pushes up from the bed sheets and staggers to his feet against Bill’s chest, asserting his own tongue into the kiss. Bill grunts softly against the hungry stroke of his mouth, and wraps both arms around his waist. He clutches at Holden’s backside, kneading ample flesh through the barrier of clothing, urging Holden’s hips into his own. Their swelling erections collide, contending with seconds moving too slowly, with clothing barely holding them back. 

Bill is the first to pull back, lips and teeth sliding off Holden’s raw lower lip with a choked groan of need. He seizes the hem of Holden’s shirt and pulls it up, giving Holden only a second to lift his arms before he tears it off. 

Holden clings uselessly to his chest, his reeling limbs making no effort to help undress as Bill’s hands go for his trousers. The pants come down in one swift motion, followed by the dragging burn of cotton underwear. His cock comes free, springing hard and throbbing from the restraint, aching against the brush of cool air. 

Clutching him by the hips, Bill forces him around to face the bed, and pushes him down into the sheets. 

Holden clambers forward, his mind spinning and tripping ahead of itself with imploding lust. He barely gets to the center of the mattress before Bill crowds behind him, guiding him up onto his knees. Holden’s face comes up from the sheets, getting a gasping breath of air, but Bill’s hand at his nape pushes his cheek down into the mattress again. 

“Stay still.” Bill says, his voice a raspy command that makes Holden shudder. “Just like this.”

Holden goes still, kneeling face down in the same position he had been in last night - only he’d been solo, with just his hand for friction, and now Bill is right behind him, all of his promises from the last two weeks on the verge of coming to fruition. His breath clouds hot against the sheets as he tentatively peeks over his shoulder. 

Bill is kneeling behind him, stripping out of his clothes in the same hasty manner he divested Holden of his pajamas. His eyes are burning, his cheeks flushed with the same powerful crush of need that Holden feels wrapping around his spine; his patience is gone, released to the wind, leaving behind only brute desire - and Holden wants to beg him to make this hard and fast, no delicacy or tenderness. He’s done with inadequate touches, and he wants to be taken now - taken, and fully possessed until he can’t endure the overload of sensation any longer. 

As Bill tosses aside his boxers, Holden clenches his jaw against a moan that manages to escape up through his nose. Bill’s cock is completely hard, flushed deep pink, ribbed with pulsing veins, exactly as he’d been thinking of it in his sex-starved daydreams. He can imagine the ribbons of cum bursting from it now, perhaps across his belly or his spine, perhaps inside of him, anywhere that Bill chooses. It doesn’t matter - he just wants it fucking into him. 

“Oh, yes …” Holden whimpers, shifting on his knees as Bill crawls closer. “Please.” 

Bill’s hands gently frame his bare hips as he leans down. His calloused palms map the curves and dips of his backside and thighs casually, a slow searching caress that might have made Holden protest in panicked frustration if the heat of his breath hadn’t been so distracting. 

Holden’s breathing hastens to exhilarated panting through his nostrils as Bill’s mouth expels a heated exhale down his exposed cleft. He leans his hips back towards the promise of slick tongue and lips, and groans low in the back of his throat. The needy thrust runs into Bill’s hands gently clutching the undersides of his ass cheeks and stretching him open. 

“Fuck ...Please.” Holden whispers, squeezing his eyes shut against the erotic image of Bill’s mouth poised over his asshole. 

Clutching his cheeks open, Bill leans in to graze his tongue in short, searching strokes across Holden’s hole. The light, slick pressure blazes across Holden’s frayed nerves like fire, sending something close to electricity bolting through his veins. He wrenches away, groaning in desperation, only to be yanked back into position by Bill’s broad, powerful hands. 

“I said for you to sit still.” Bill chides, quietly. 

Holden bites back a whimper, pressing his forehead into the sheets. “Please, I can’t …”

“You want this or not?”

“Yes. Yes!” Holden cries, nodding desperately against the sheets. “Please.”

“Then stay right here.” Bill murmurs, giving his hips a squeeze. 

Holden goes still, clinging to the sheets. He tries to steady his breathing, but whatever composure he could have managed to scrape together is scattered to the wind once more when Bill’s tongue touches down again. He flinches, his hips dropping out of their raised, arched position at the single, fiery stroke of Bill’s tongue against his hole.

“All right.” Bill says, impatiently, nudging at Holden’s inner thigh. “Come here.”

Holden shifts his knees wider, and is rewarded with Bill’s fist clamping tightly around the root of his cock. He cries out as the firm grip guides him back into position, forcing him to stay in place or risk being yanked on in a displeasurable way. 

When Bill’s mouth touches him again, he has no choice but to stay still. He can only whimper and tear at the sheets as Bill’s tongue slicks him gently, applying a light, swirling stroke that makes him want to sob in desperation; even so, his cock is twitching madly in Bill’s grip, trapped blood aching inside him, threatening to explode. He can feel the pressure mounting between his hips, the small, hollow arena of his agonized need beginning to cave in upon itself. 

The tingles start low and inconsistent, spiking whenever Bill’s tongue pushes into him, ebbing when it retreats and licks him in slithering, lazy stripes. Holden goes still, clamps his eyes shut, and reaches for the threshold of pleasure that’s been drifting just beyond his reach for days. He can see it hovering on the horizon just behind the black sheen of his eyelids, a great, monumental wave rising to crush him. 

“Oh, oh, Bill … Gonna come, gonna come-” 

The words flow easily, naturally from his mouth, quickly learned in the space of two weeks; and as with every other time before, Bill’s hand retreats from between his thighs, leaving him clinging desperately to the fading fragments of rising orgasm. 

Holden presses his forehead to the sheets, breathing raspily through the blinding surges of gradually retreating climax.

Bill’s hands strokes his backside, one thumb running along the saliva-slick cleft to poke at his lax hole, giving him no time to lament the fresh denial.

“Oh, yes …” Holden moans, leaning into the slight pressure. 

Bill's thumb pierces him slowly, grinding inside of him for a few brief, erotic moments before drawing back again. The heat of his breath heralds his mouth just before his tongue returns, smoothing across the tender pucker of flesh in firm strokes. 

Holden groans but stays still, fighting past the first wave of desperate need to find some sense of balance inside the pounding ache surging through him. He’s done it so many times before when pleasure was much farther off than it is right now; he’s not sure if that fact makes it easier to comply, or if his desperation will finally eat him alive when he’s just minutes away from real completion. 

Bill’s tongue swirls wetly against him for several long moments before pausing and hardening against his pleasured opening. Holden gasps as it curls inside, fucking him gently yet persistently in shallow strokes. 

“Oh my god …” Holden groans, his back arching and his hips writhing helplessly. 

Bill fingers dig into his hips as the wet, superficial penetration persists, urging faster and harder into Holden’s willing hole. The bruising, crushing force of his grasp only encourages the need building between them, the panicked hunger coursing through Holden’s veins to scream louder over the dull roar of fledgling determination to obediently see this through. He can hardly help it as he begins to writhe again, twisting away from the deliberate invasion of Bill’s tongue keeping him balanced on the knife’s edge of pleasure, his orgasm still minutes off, out of his reach. 

“Please …” Holden groans, sucking in a strangled breath against the muzzle of the bed sheets. “Bill, please-”

Bill’s mouth pulls back abruptly, leaving the slick layers of saliva to cool on his quaking skin. 

“Please?” He echoes. 

Holden nods, arching his hips in plaintive offering. 

“Please, fuck me.” He whispers, his voice a hoarse, trembling wreck. “Let me come. I can’t …I’m begging you, please …”

Bill plants a slow kiss on the swell of his ass cheek that lingers as he seems to contemplate Holden’s pleading. At last, he draws back, and nudges Holden’s hip for him to roll over. 

Holden sinks down against the sheets with a trembling sigh. He already feels like he’s run a marathon, his body so charged with adrenaline and surging endorphins that he’s sweating and shaking. His legs are weak as he lifts them to his chest, displaying himself. 

Bill kneels over him, gaze wandering over Holden’s splayed body with meticulous satisfaction. He leans over to retrieve the Vaseline from the drawer, and opens the lid. 

Holden’s breathing catches, his whole body going utterly still with anticipation. He watches intently, chewing impatiently at his lower lip, as Bill dips his fingers into the ointment and lathers it over his cock. 

Bill’s nostrils flare as he strokes himself, but his mouth is pursed tautly against a groan. When his cock is slick and gleaming, he smears the excess across Holden’s opening, and pushes his fingers absently inside. 

Holden clutches at his knees, and squeezes his eyes shut against the fresh sensation of penetration. Bill uses two fingers to thrust into him, immediately urging him open, curling devilishly against his swollen prostate. 

“Oh, fuck.” Holden cries, softly, his back arching against the white-hot burst of sensation. “Bill, oh …”

“Shh,” Bill soothes, transitioning into a smooth, pumping rhythm. “Don’t even think about coming yet.”

“I’m not, I’m not.” Holden moans, vehemently, casting him a desperate gaze. “You’re making it really hard to-”

His complaint cuts off when Bill fingers delve in and curl upward again in a lavish, fleeting caress across his prostate. His first instinct is to grab at his cock to encourage the bright spark of pleasure, but as soon as his hand begins a quick descent towards his belly, Bill catches him by the wrist. 

“No.” He orders, pinning Holden’s wrist to the mattress. “No touching, didn’t you hear me?”

“Yes.” Holden says, his voice descending to a choked whisper. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to.”

“It’s okay. Just lay back.” Bill says, leaning down to press a kiss to Holden’s knee. “Relax. I’m going to fuck you.”

Holden shudders as Bill’s fingers slide out of him, leaving him vacant and aching, longing for the real thing. 

The only betrayal of Bill’s desperation is the slight tremble in his hands as he pins Holden’s knee to his chest and guides his cock up against his hole. They both moan aloud at the graze of contact, the first slick, heated meeting of intimate skin after more than two weeks. 

Holden feels as if he’s being branded, virgin skin burned by claiming iron; and suddenly, the last two empty weeks make sense to him. All his agony is validated in this moment, and all his longing is more deeply fulfilled now than five other moments of mediocre sexual intercourse could have ever achieved. 

He’s already crying out before Bill’s cock thrusts into him, but he nearly crumbles when their hips meet, a fusing slap of hungry, hard skin that ripples through his body like a crippling tidal wave. 

“Oh god, yes!” He gasps, his back arching through the violent surge of sensation striking his barren body. 

Bill leans over him, clutching at his hip with one hand, cradling his cheek with the other. Their bodies align, meeting and matching, joining and fitting perfectly. The dull ache that they’ve both been carrying for two weeks shatters its hardened exterior, exposing something more fragile and tender, some deep, mutual longing that can’t be explained with words. 

Holden clings onto Bill’s shoulders as their bodies meet, one thrust after the next, finding each other’s rhythm with ease. His thoughts ascend past waiting and desperation, past frustration; he’s swimming now, floating, lost in the pure bliss of their desires meeting halfway, recognizing one another, melding into one blinding pulse-point of need. 

Bill drags him up from the sheets and onto his lap so that Holden can grind down against him. Holden braces himself against Bill’s shoulder as his seated position on Bill’s cock drives the connection deeper, the filled sensation so invasive that it’s almost unbearable. He cracks his eyelids open to glimpse Bill gazing up at him, his own eyes barely open and his mouth slack with awestruck satisfaction. 

“Fuck, baby.” He whispers, slipping a hand between them. “You’re beautiful.” 

Holden moans, his body nearly going limp in response to the praise and the creeping warmth of Bill’s hand wrapping around his cock. His muscles are burning from maintaining the steady thrusts, but he pushes himself harder, grinding down on Bill’s cock until he feels it hitting his prostate just right. 

“Oh my god, oh my god …” Holden pants, his eyes slamming shut as pleasure roars through his veins. 

Bill’s hand drags purposefully over his cock, working him towards the edge with no sign of stopping, and after the last two weeks, that simple touch is all he needs. 

“I’m coming …” Holden whimpers, bowing forward against Bill’s chest as arousal crushes him through the middle. “I’m coming-”

This time, the fractured warning doesn’t bring his surging pleasure to a dead halt. It keeps going, pushing, screaming through his clamping, burning muscles. Bill’s hand shifts into a faster rhythm, quickly pushing him towards the pinnacle while he encourages the approaching orgasm with raspy whispers. 

“Fuck … yes, baby. Come on. Come for me.”

Holden didn’t need much to tip him over the edge, but that eager praise acts like the pin sliding out of a hand grenade. His thrusting comes to an abrupt stop as it shatters from inside him, breaking free like a surging, swallowing tide that he’d barely been holding back by matchsticks for the better part of two weeks. The first rift of violent spasms is so fierce that he buckles against Bill’s chest, his body shuddering helplessly while the pleasure compounds behind his squeezed eyelids, rising, rising, and rising. 

He’s moaning, panting, and slobbering against Bill’s shoulder as he feels the slick heat dappling his belly and chest. Pent-up release gushes from his cock to dampen the fierce stroke of Bill’s hand that continues to jerk him even as he stumbles through the worst of it and into the quaking aftershocks, low ripples of electric pleasure that are just as powerful as the initial seize of muscles against his tender body. 

Bill milks every last drop from him with a firm touch, and it feels like sandpaper across raw skin, his body crying out for mercy after too much sensation. Still, he leans closer, clinging to Bill’s chest as it passes and he’s left weak and drained, but longing eternally for more. 

Bill carefully lays him out on his back again, kissing his forehead, his temple, his cheek. Holden whimpers at the gentle thrust of his hips, their bodies joining more softly this time but the impact reaching just as deeply now that he’s tender and used. 

“Ohhh …” Holden moans into Bill’s kiss, choking on his own saliva as Bill urges his knees up again so that he can thrust into him unobstructed. 

“Fuck …” Bill curses, pressing his forehead to Holden’s. “That was perfect. You’re perfect …”

Holden nearly cries as the praises shower across his trembling, wasted needs. He can hardly breathe with Bill’s cock thrusting slowly, deliberately into him, and his mouth pressing rows of hot, branding kisses down his jawline, his throat, his collarbones. He tries to respond, but his body feels limp and powerless. He lays in Bill’s clinging embrace, taking the steady thrust of his cock with choked whimpers, taking the rain of kisses with staggered breaths. They wander down against his chest, his armpits, his nipples, singeing every inch with the wet heat of Bill’s mouth. The skin seems to burn in his wake, every point of contact like a bursting star on his tender flesh. All the while, the gradual, grinding thrust of Bill’s cock inside him stretches on, and he can’t think of Bill’s own simmering desperation; he can only enjoy the lengthy, yearning fusion after so long, quietly promising himself he’ll never forget what this moment felt like. 

When Bill does come, it’s some time later after the feverish build of his grinding thrusts, his shuddering moans, his labored sweat drizzling along his hairline. Their bodies are hot and flushed and damp, driven to some fragile breaking point, as he seizes against Holden’s chest. Holden wraps both arms around him, clinging to the shudders rolling through him, and reveling in the wet heat filling him from the inside out, marking him in a way no one else ever has. 

After, they lay in a motionless, breathless heap for what feels like an hour.

Bill’s head is tucked against his belly, right over the spot where a warm, nebulous bliss dwells, bearing him up into euphoric clouds. He runs his fingertips over Bill’s shoulder, and watches goosebumps arise with his teeth tucked over a pleased smile. Bill shivers softly, yet doesn’t move, keeping his cheek nestled tightly in Holden’s stomach. 

Finally he sits up, his body pulling away from Holden’s slowly, grudgingly as if the disconnect physically hurts. He crawls up against the pillows beside Holden, and retrieves his cigarettes from the night stand. 

Holden rolls over onto his side, pressing his cheek against Bill’s shoulder to watch him light up and inhale smoke. 

“Well,” Bill says, his voice cutting through the dense silence. “Was I right?”

“About?” 

“You know … when I promised you it would be worth it?” He says, casting Holden a presumptive smile. 

Yes.” Holden says after a moment, “As much as it pains me to admit it.”

Bill chuckles, and leans over to drop a kiss on Holden’s cheek. 

“I know how hard it was for you.” He says, softly, planting his cigarette in the corner of his mouth so that he can stroke Holden’s jawline with his thumb. “I’m proud of you.”

“It was hard.” Holden says, fighting back a pleased smile. “Probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah.”

“Harder than interviewing serial killers?” Bill says, his eyebrows rising skeptically. 

“Not exactly. You know what I mean.”

“I gotta say, I wasn’t sure you were going to make it.” Bill says, dragging his cigarette from his mouth. 

Smoke curls past his smirk, and Holden scowls. 

“I told you I could.”

“There were a few moments. You know what I’m talking about.”

“Only because you made it so difficult.” Holden says, pushing up onto his elbow to pin Bill with a defiant gaze. “Sunday night. Remember? I almost came three or four times before  _ you  _ stopped me. And whose idea was the phone sex?”

Bill’s smile broadens, and he leans over to give Holden a kiss. Holden ducks away from the gesture for a few stubborn seconds before succumbing to Bill’s hand on his cheek, drawing him in. Their mouths join softly, stroking in mutual satisfaction until he can hardly breathe, think straight, or much less hold onto his annoyance. 

Bill draws back, exhaling a happy sigh as he strokes Holden’s cheek. 

“All that to say … it was worth it. Right?”

“Yes. I just don’t know when I’ll be ready to try it again.”

“Again?” Bill asks, his brow rising curiously. “I thought at the end of this you might ban it forever.”

“No, not banned. Just … temporarily diverted.”

“Okay.” Bill says, nodding amiably. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Holden sinks back down, nestling his head against Bill’s chest. A vein of exhaustion opens up in his chest, and he feels suddenly, unbearably sleepy. The satisfied feeling hovers, weightless and euphoric, as if it’s a new feeling altogether. He quietly realizes that the dull ache he’d grown accustomed to over the past two and a half weeks is momentarily gone. It had followed him through every day, every hour, weighing down between his legs like an aching, chafing stone, a reminder of his needs tightly balanced against his longing for Bill’s approval. He wouldn’t admit it aloud, but right before he drifts off to sleep, he quietly misses that feeling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> I'm [prinxcesskayy](https://prinxcesskayy.tumblr.com//) on Tumblr!


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